Joining me via Skype this week is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I hope that most of you know of Ayaan already but in case you don't her story is truly an incredible one that takes her from a child in Somalia, to an elected member of Parliament in Holland, to a fearless free speech advocate hated by both the extreme right and the regressive left. We'll dive deeper into her life's incredible story shortly but before we do that I wanted to take a moment to talk about why people like Ayaan matter.

As our show has gained momentum here I realize that what we're doing is really becoming an influential force for the things that I believe matter, namely the battle of ideas, free speech and liberal values. At the end of the day though, I want this to be about more than talk because the repercussions of these ideas we're talking about aren't just abstract notions, they're stark realities for so many people.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a survivor in every sense of the word. She survived genital mutilation as a child, she survived a forced marriage with a cousin, she survived the cold blooded murder of a friend in broad daylight in Amsterdam and subsequent death threats. Many people would've given up after any of these horrific events. Many people would've just accepted that this is what life has given them and remained quiet. Many people, right this very second, are doing just that. I find no fault with the people who remain silent under such subjugation. They see no way out, and sadly even those in the secular world who want to help them fear the repercussions if they speak out.

Not Ayaan though. She has bravely and boldly fought for women's rights, brought the issue of female genital mutilation out in the open and relentlessly made her life story a cause bigger than herself. It's easy to sit back and privately talk about these things, or tweet about them from the comfort of your home, but she is out there putting her life on the line after they already tried to take it from her.

I wanna be very clear that when I talk about these issues, I'm talking about ideas and not people. This seems to be a major sticking point in this conversation and I really hope that eventually we can get past that for not just the health of our debate but for all the young people being indoctrinated with any ideology. Imagine if a political party had a platform that included female genital mutilation, forced marriage and death for apostates. Absolutely insane and ridiculously absurd, right? Well religious ideas, cultural ideas, any ideas, deserve the same scrutiny, not matter how uncomfortable it makes us. I for one, would rather live in a society that deals with uncomfortable truths out in the open than one that leaves huge portions of people alone in the dark.